Codecademy environment, Ruby Tutorial…Left is instructions, center is where you type the code, and right is where you see the program run.

As I’ve been making my way through tutorials, something was starting to bother me. Tutorials let you practice in nice little environments that provide three fields: One for the tutorial’s instructions, a second for you to write code, and a third to show the results of your programs.

The problem is…This all happens on a webpage, and I couldn’t figure out how that translates to writing actual code and having it do something on my real computer. If I don’t know this, I would bet that others as green as me don’t really know either. Thus, I decided to figure it out (with help of course), and spell it out in this post. Maybe this will be helpful to other novices out there, and I know it will be helpful to me in the future if I need a reminder.

I asked my most trusted advisor, the husband, how to program something for real, and he explained the steps you need to go through. The “Hello, world!” program seems to be an initiation ritual of sorts, so I decided to use my little “programming for real” lesson to make my computer say “Hello, world!”

Ruby has quickly become my language of choice. There’s something about it that just draws me. It might be because I’ve started reading “Why’s Poignant Guide to Ruby”, and he agrees it’s important to submit to something that draws you.

Not familiar? Here’s a passage:

“This world’s too big for such a a little language, I thought. Poor little thing doesn’t stand a chance. Doesn’t have legs to stand on. Doesn’t have arms to swim.”

Like when you meet Somebody in college and they look like somebody who used to hit you in the face with paintbrushes when you were a kid. And so, impulsively, you conclude that this new Somebody is likely a non-friend. You wince at their hair. You hang up phones loudly during crucial moments in their anecdotes. You use your pogo stick right there where they are trying to walk!

I signed up for Code Academy about a week ago to access tutorials for JavaScript and Ruby, and I like how they email me little messages every once in a while. The funny thing is, I’m not usually a fan of this. I can’t stand arbitrary marketing emails, and with the November election coming up, my political affiliations are trying my patience! Anyway, I actually enjoy the little messages from Zach Simms, CEO of Codecademy.

I have been questioning which language to focus my novice coding energy on, and have concluded that I need to figure out a couple things:

Which language feels easiest to me

Which will help me do the things I want to do

Yesterday, I decided my mission is to figure out something I want to do in order to address the second question. Well, it’s like Zach psychically picked up on my thoughts, (and I know that’s what internet marketers everywhere want me to think), because I awoke to find a very helpful little message in my inbox this morning, and thought I would share!

Via Zach Simms, CEO of Code Academy:

People often ask me what programming language they should learn, and I always say the same thing: “It depends.”

Want to be more web savvy, or build a website? — start with Web Fundamentals. This covers all the basic HTML and CSS you’ll need to know to understand the web.

Want to make a game or app? — give JavaScript a try. This dynamic language will let you create interactive apps that you can use on a smartphone.

Want to process data or explore databases? – Ruby or Python are your best bet.

Which Programming Language to choose to learn first? As I said in this post, I’ve received opposing advice from more knowledgeable peers about which might be easier and why. I need to figure out which language is easier for me, and start there.

I thought it might be helpful to break down what I know about each so far. I can not boast feeling very knowledgeable about either, but I have done some pieces of tutorials for both. So far, it’s not too confusing to do both at the same time. In fact, it’s helpful! Both tutorials contain the same vocabulary, for example Math, Strings, and Functions. Those are some of the things that you can write using JavaScript or Ruby. Learning about those and other basic components of coding in two different languages is actually helping me feel like I can understand them more deeply. Each tutorial explains them differently, so each new explanation provides a little more depth to my thinking.

I can’t yet say which I think will be easier to continue with, but I can simply say that I’m understanding more, making coding in general feel easier.

Earlier this week, I was convinced that Ruby was a good place for me to start in my quest to learn how to code. This is based on people telling me that “it’s easy”, and reading similar things. I had spent some time tinkering with a “15-minute” Ruby tutorial, and felt like I kind of understood a few basic concepts and vocabulary (very basic!!)

A conversation that I had a my first “Learn to Code” Meetupmade me question my course of action. I more knowledgeable person where I should start, and he recommended Java Script. He said it was a pretty universal and popular programming language to know about, and recommended Codecademy‘s tutorial as a good place to start. I told him that Ruby had been recommended because it was “easy”, and he offered a really interesting challenge to this logic.

Ruby, he explained, uses a lot of commands that are written like English, which is why people like it and think it’s easy. (Yes, that sounds good to me…) Java Script uses a lot more symbols and characters that look “kind of weird”. Because of this, you are learning a little bit more about the fundamentals of coding. Ruby might be a little easier to learn, but beginners might understand a little less about what they are actually doing. Thus, it could be harder to get good at, and harder to apply to other languages.

This intrigued me! I like to know fundamentals and to understand the “why” in things, and I couldn’t help but feel a pang of worry that my journey with coding could have a similar outcome to my journey with math. I have never been crazy about math. It always seemed hard and tedious. I remember learning Algebra in high school. For a while, I understood how to do it and why I was doing it. Then, at a certain point, I stopped understanding the “why”. I can remember the details of the high school classroom, and even where I was sitting when I stopped understanding, but I have no idea what type of problem we were on. I could still figure out how to DO what the course was asking me to do and I did ok (but not great). I felt disengaged because I like to know the point of what I’m doing, and be connected to it emotionally. It got really boring and stayed that way. I could still memorize how to do the problems, but they did not seem to have any real-world application, so my interest completely faded. I took as much math in high school as I had to, and as soon as the requirements were met, I started taking more art and other “fun” classes.

What a missed opportunity! Every once in a while, situations pop up in my life now when algebra is necessary (modifying recipes, for example). I always wish that I had known the right questions to ask in high school so I would retain some type of understanding, but at least Google tends to work well in those moments. However, I don’t want the same thing to happen with coding! I want to know how to do it and want to understand the “why” as much as the “how”.

So what do I do? Java Script or Ruby? Which advice do I take? I don’t want to choose the wrong path, and end up bored and disengaged, which is a realistic possibility with both languages, but which one is better?

I’ve analyzed this quite a bit…probably too much. I talked with a teacher friend tonight, and presented this quandary. She reminded me of a TED talk that I love by Kristen Wheeler on finding your native genius. This talk has nothing to do with either coding or teaching. Rather, it speaks to motivation and potential. Kristen’s makes the point that if you start learning about something that you are already good at or naturally feels “easy”, then you flourish. If you start learning about something that is naturally hard for you, it’s not impossible but the process will be slower and clunkier. Continue reading →

Ok, so last night I put on my big girl pants and went to a Meetup at the Denver Library called “Learn to Code”. The description was this: Open house/study group focused on learning code at varying skill levels. All are welcome to come with or without experience, a computer, or an RSVP. I thought this sounded perfect! I have no experience, I do have a computer, and I did RSVP. I met all the criteria!

Over the past several years, I have become a pretty solid professional networker, so I’m comfortable with the thought of something like this…but man! It was still hard to walk through that door! Being a good networker in education circles does not really prepare you to cast yourself into a room with a bunch of people who you know nothing about, and who you are pretty sure have no interest in discussing education (and they shouldn’t! They want to learn how to code!) It was intimidating and daunting, and perfect, because part of the reason I wanted to do this was to meet people who are different from me. I want to meet people with completely different skill sets and learn from and with them. Sure, it’s easy to walk into a room of teachers and start a conversation about the importance of nature-based education, or why we don’t get the respect we deserve. Walking into a room with a whole different purpose was scary, but exciting!